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Topic: Baking Powder Crutch for Quick Dough (Read 1186 times)

I just did this last night to "get rid" of some sauce, cheese and pepperoni hanging around taking up room in the fridge from the last pizza night.

KABF - 12 ozSprinkled a good dusting of garlic saltSprinkled ?? 1/2 or more Tablespoon of baking powderStir dry ingredients

Tap water - 7 ozSprinkle ?? 1/4 teaspoon yeastSpot of olive oil

Mixer for about 5 minutes, then divide = two 10 oz balls

It did have a couple of hours to bench raise prior to a hand stretch and toss (along with whatever dust and cobwebs were in the corner of the skylight (oops)

I baked two 14" pizza's on a screen, lowest rack of the oven at around 450 Deg

It was lightly crackery and thin but very tender - not tough. I thought it lacked some flavor, but my wife disagreed and just kept saying "this is the best pizza I've ever had - were never going to round table again"(which although a great compliment has me confused, because it's the least effort I've ever put into making dough). I'll stick to my 24 hour doughs, but this had me scratching my head....

Do short ferments make for a much more tender crumb..... hmmm.... What about shortening ..?? Can I get the flavor of a 24 hour cold rise with the tenderness of a short rise with the use of some shortening???

If there was anything I learned from this little experiment - 1. Sneak some sharp cheddar into the cheese blend 2. Don't underestimate post bake seasoning like Mediterranean dried basil and black pepper 3. Sometimes you can get away with "banking it off the porta potty" (tin cup) (it means think outside the box) 4. I am capable of consuming 1 and a half 14" pepperoni pizzas (But oh MAN I felt like I was going to explode before going to bed).

Just thought I'd ramble about with odd thoughts - if anyone has some input, I'm all ears (or eyes, or whatever the E-equivalent is) - all the best folks

J;No two ways about it, fermentation does develop flavor in the finished crust, but to some the flavor has been said to be "beer like" as I said, fermentation, but they find it not so desirable as others do, so what's the solution? Chemically leavened crust. When I was a kid, soon after moving into town from the farm, I discovered Chef Boyardee (don't know about the spelling) pizza in a box. The crust was a dry mix to which you only added some water and stirred the mass together. It came out much like a biscuit dough. I pressed it onto a baking sheet, topped it with the supplied sauce and added our toppings. As I remember, I wasn't too excited about it back then, but hey....it was still pizza. I have gone so far as to make a totally unleavened pizza crust. This is easy to do, just make a dough as you would any other dough, except delete the yeast. Allow the dough to hydrate about an hour, then roll it out to fit a baking sheet. Dock the crust well, and parbake it. As soon as you remove it from the oven, dress the parbaked crust as desired and place back into the oven to complete baking. Very cracker like. We have used baking powder, but we find that it imparts a biscuit like flavor to the finished crust. This is due to the acid component in the baking powder (sodium aluminum phosphate) but we also found that when this acid was changed to sodium aluminum phosphate) so did the flavor, now it tasted something like a cake donut. Different brands of baking powder have different compositions, so just be aware and be sure to read the label. We have had our best luck using this type of dough when we made it as an herb flavored crust.Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

Dr. Lehman - Thank you sir, I'm always amazed at what I learn reading your posts.I'll be doing some experimenting with chemical leavening to see what exactly this new tool can do.(and adding some herbs as suggested)Many thanksJ

J;I neglected to add, if you want to make a truly chemical leavened crust the best solution is to use a fat encapsulated chemical leavening system. This is the type of leavening system that is used in conjunction with yeast in making the DiGiorno bake to rise pizzas sold at your local supermarket. To buy the fat encapsulated chemical leavening contact The Wright Group, Tony Oszlanyi at <tonyo@wenrich.com> They make the leavening material available in small quantities for use in single unit pizzerias or they will sell it to you by the truck load too.Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

JJ;The DiGiorno Pizza was developed using a combination leavened crust technology that I developed about 27-years ago. Made a small fortune showing all the other companies how to make it once it was commercialized with the DiGiorno pizza by Kraft.If you want to see some good working formulas for making your own version, please go to the PMQ web site at <www.pmq.com> and go to the RECIPE BANK. I've got three different bake to rise dough formulas posted there.Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor